Philip Wallach joins the Law & Liberty Podcast to discuss his new book Why Congress and more.
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The Congressional Budget Process: A Brief Primer

Improving Federal Agency Performance Through Budgetary Reforms

Dysfunction in Federal Budgeting: Structural Factors and Selected Reforms

Defense Contracting: A Focus on Outcomes

The Congressional Appropriations Process: Background and Potential Innovations

The Anatomy of Constitutional Despair
Democratization and Congressional Decline

Why Collectivism Is Surging
Conservatism’s Aspirations

Congress in Search of Itself

The Congress We Deserve – Johnathan O'Neill

Congress's Constitution – If They Can Keep It

Choosing Congressional Irrelevance – Philip A. Wallach

Teaching Congress – Kevin J. Burns

Congress's Ironic Enfeeblement – Yuval Levin

Prospects for Congress – Philip A. Wallach

Radical Reforms to Conserve Congress

The Forever Bank Wars

The Shape of Publius
Politics, Culture, and Congressional Decadence
Thatcher’s Post Script

Averting Fiscal Catastrophe

Choosing Congressional Irrelevance – Philip A. Wallach

The Path to Entitlement Reform

VON MISES ON CENTRAL BANKING
​oll.libertyfund.org/publications/liberty-matters/2014-01-07-lawrence-white-ludwig-von-mises-s-the-theory-of-money-and-credit-at-101-january-2014?mc_cid=03d9857441&mc_eid=d05014a5fa

A New Model for Social Security

Meaningful entitlement reform will require both principles and practice.
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Moody's Downgrade of U.S. Credit Rating: an Exercise in ...

Japan's Day of Economic Reckoning

Thinking About Pro-growth Policy and Federal Budget Deficits

Policies to Reduce Federal Budget Deficits by Increasing ...

The Fading Lessons of New York's Fiscal Crisis

TEXT:  SPECIAL BOOK EDITION AEI

HOOVER:  FISCAL POLICY INITIATIVES

The Economic Consequences of US Fiscal Policy Trends Conference

DEATH TO DISCRETIONARY SPENDING

OPTIONS FOR REDUCING THE DEFICIT

5 WAYS TO TACKLE SPENDING/DEFICITS

Book Review: Paper Soldiers: How the Weaponization of the Dollar Changed the World Order

REFORMING THE FED, A SERIES:  CATO ALT-M 

HELICOPTER MONEY??

THE FED'S INDEPENDENCE?

AEI:  A REVISED MACROECONOMIC DASHBOARD ON DEFICIT REDUCTION

AMERICAN COMPASS 

Updated Warshawsky, Mantus, and Pang Model Projections

Dysfunction in Federal Budgeting: Structural Factors and ...

Dysfunction in Federal Budgeting: Structural Factors and ...

Why Americans Are Still Unhappy with the Economy

How Washington Can Finally Get Back to Fiscal Sanity

PAUL E. PETERSON:  JIMMY CARTER'S PROBLEMATIC LEGACY

CENTER ON BUDGET & POLICY PRIORITIES:  WHAT WAS SIMPSON BOWLES

VANCE GINN ECONOMIC CONSULTING:  ENSURING FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY

THE DAILY ECONOMY.ORG  WILL FED REPEAT MISTAKES OF THE 1970'S

American Federalism Today

American Federalism Today: Perspectives on Political and ...

A (Better) Government For The People

 American Federalism Today: Perspectives on Political and Economic Governance

Republicans Should Prepare for More Spending Wars

Politics Without Winners: Can Either Party Build a Majority Coalition?Key Points

• The American party system is in an unusual extended deadlock, with two minority parties, neither capable of sustaining a durable winning coalition.
• Both parties have plausible avenues to build a lasting majority coalition, but to do so, they must understand their 21st-century failures.
• The party system’s history and new data from AEI’s Survey Center on American Life show how the parties might do this.
• Durable majority parties are not only possible; they are the norm in American politics. But they require self-conscious coalition building.

Read the full pdf.

American Federalism Today: Perspectives on Political and Economic Governance
Michael J. Boskin, 

CITY JOURNAL

Nullification and Ultimate Authority
​One need not endorse nullification to recognize a serious problem with relying only on the federal government to protect the reserved authority of states.
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Constitutional Tensions
Burke, a Man For All Seasons

How Congress Lost, Part II: The Constitutional Presidency

How Congress Lost, Part III: Hamiltonian Energy and the Washington Administration

How Congress Lost, Part IV: Washington, Foreign Policy, and the Emergence of Presidential Governance

• The political battles over public credit in 1790–92 demonstrated the potential for strong presidential leadership over domestic affairs. The foreign policy crises of 1793–96 likewise strengthened presidential leadership.
• When Britain and France went to war in 1793, Americans disagreed about how the United States should maintain neutrality. The pro-British faction ultimately triumphed because of institutional advantages inherent to the executive branch.
• Partial to Alexander Hamilton’s pro-British sensibilities, George Washington used the executive branch’s unitary power to set the political agenda in ways that empowered Hamilton.
• James Madison and his allies in the House failed to stop these initiatives, indicating that by 1796, the executive branch was the most dominant one.

Read the full pdf.

How Congress Lost, Part V: Politics and Presidential Power ...

FIXING CONGRESS

In a new essay for National Affairs, Howard Husock explores the causes and consequences of this educational failure.

IS CONGRESS BROKEN

THE BROKEN BRANCH

The Confidence Gap: 40 Years Later
Karlyn Bowman | Forbes

The Spotlight Is on Speaker Johnson: We Need a Budget Now.
Elaine McCusker | Hill

A Bipartisan Tool to Improve America’s Fiscal Future

Making Tough Fiscal Choices to Protect Future Generations

Sounding the Alarm: Examining the Need for a Fiscal Commission
Rob Portman | House Committee on the Budget
Former Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) testified before the House Committee on the Budget on the need for a fiscal commission to tackle the federal debt crisis.

The Urgent 21st-Century Upgrades Congress Needs to Do Its Job
Kevin R. Kosar | Hill
Voters would be wise to tell Congress to rebuild itself for the 21st century and get on with the public’s business.
Full Story

Jay Cost introduces the factors behind this legislative degeneration in the first of a multi-report series.

JAY COST PART II

Why Rising Powers Resist Alliances, 
An in-depth exploration of the article, "China and the Alliance Allergy of Rising Powers,"

• In the long term, dynamism is unlikely to emerge from efforts to circumvent or suppress the melee of democratic politics. Rather, advocates for innovation should direct their energy toward building balanced governance institutions—focusing on the right capacities, expertise, and incentives.

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Philip Wallach’s Why Congress 

Put the People Back in the People’s House
Kevin R. Kosar and John Maxwell Hamilton | RealClearPolitics
Policy debates in Washington need to be re-centered. This can be achieved by congressional committees, which have jurisdiction over policymaking, bringing average voters into their deliberations.
Full Story

Kevin Corinth and Jeff Larrimore investigate Americans’ income growth across five generations, from the Lost Generation to Generation Z. Using a posttax, post-transfer income measure derived from the Current Population Survey, the authors find that each of the past four generations have been better off than the previous, with millennials ages 36–40 having 18 percent higher median household income than their parents did. While Corinth and Larrimore’s analysis suggests that intergenerational income growth has slowed, this is largely a product of stalled growth in working hours. As a result, this research demonstrates that intergenerational real market income growth remains robust.

Medicare Is Central to Fixing Health Care and the Federal Budget
James C. Capretta | Hill
If the program changed to encourage cost reduction through competition and consumer choice, the entire system would benefit from a renewed focus on efficiency in the provision of service to patients.
Full Story

Wasteful Local Stimulus Funding Could Mark The End Of Competitive Federalism
by Paul E. Peterson, Carlos Lastra-Anadon via The Hill
A fiscal flood of biblical proportions — $1.3 trillion — is descending upon state and local governments via four pieces of congressional legislation enacted in the name of COVID relief. No less than $738 billion is scheduled to be spent in the current fiscal year. The Biden administration and congressional progressives are promising trillions more. The vast transfer of funds to lower tiers of government threatens the U. S. federal system as we know it.

​Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform
 Congress today is falling short. Fewer bills, worse oversight, and more dysfunction. But why? In a new volume of essays, the contributors investigate an underappreciated reason Congress is struggling: It doesn’t have the internal capacity to do what our constitutional system requires of it. Leading scholars chronicle the institutional decline of Congress and the decades-long neglect of its own internal investments in the knowledge and expertise necessary to perform as a first-rate legislature. Today’s legislators and congressional committees have fewer — and less expert and experienced — staff than the executive branch or K Street. This leaves them at the mercy of lobbyists and the administrative bureaucracy.  READ MORE
Our overwhelmed Congress
Do we need Congress?
House must take the first step to modernize how Congress works

China Has a Few Things to Teach the U.S. Economy 
– Noah Smith, Bloomberg

In search of responsible republican government, part 2: The parties as a solution
 
Jay Cost | September 2019 
 

• Although political parties have long been in disrepute, they can help make our government more responsive to the public interest.
  
  
• A party’s purpose is to win elections for its members, but depending on how party rules are structured, parties can advance or hinder republican government.
  
  
• Changes to nominating procedures, campaign finance, and internal party rules could make the parties work more effectively for the national good.

In search of responsible republican government, part 1: The institutional problem
 Jay Cost | AEI | August 6, 2019

Restoring Congress: The parties are a solution
 Jay Cost | NationalReview.com | June 17, 2019

Updates To The Budget Calculator
via Budget Matters, America Off Balance
We are happy to announce we have updated the America Off Balance Budget Calculator to reflect the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) recent update to their 10-year budget and economic projections.